Genesis Virus

by Pinto, Daniel

  The horse is pressing onwards in a hiccup gallop. Gun barrels pressing against flesh render gunshots inaudible. David sees Coop in flashes and pauses, as if he’s looking through slideshow eyes at the phantasmagoria of fleeting moments.

  Coop vanishes.

  David feels a punch to the chest; he looks equal parts contrite and lethal. Him and the zombies, the distorters of reality, are standing on opposite sides of the river of time, connected and disconnected simultaneously.

  Coop’s black hat floats down like a raven’s feather over the flaming zombies wondering off like lost children. With one hand over his mouth, David grits his teeth, his chest rises high, it feels like it’s about to collide with his chin. David screams into his fist, nothing comes out.

  David and the zombies stand apart on the conflicting sides of the escarpment of realities. The zombies relax and walk off into the sunset. One of the zombies has David’s machete through its heart.

  David’s hands move, his mind still on the carnage, the bike pulls him away from the hinterland and a dead friend. It should have been me.

  27

  Discourse over right and wrong concerns itself only with illegal crimes that a minority is persecuted for, never about the daily wrongful acts the majority commit. How can the simulation of virtue be punished? Impotence of the mind makes veritable supposition real enough. Pretenses of self-worth is an easy lie to accept.

  The sum of my life is greater than the parts. Own your story so you can write the ending. Have I played the part well? Then applaud as I exit. King Solomon was wise enough to act humble to get it all, I’m wiser.

  The only true wisdom is in knowing you know nothing. A great philosopher once said that and “Know thy self.” If you’re reading this you’ll just have to take my word on that and everything else I say. But if you’re reading this and don’t agree with anything I rant about. Just remember you exist because people like me exist. Anyone can make a decision; it takes a man to live with the consequences. You have the luxury of making hypothetical choices with no actual consequences. I envy you beyond the grave. Stories from my time might seem surreal like epic tales from the Bible, but rest assured many of us lived during a despondent history that will probably happen again. I did my duty; I hope you can do yours, if it happens again. I’ve earned my future, have you?

  If half the world thinks you’re good and the other half bad, who are you? What does it matter, either way? A minority or a majority opinion is still an opinion. Laws are the only opinions that matter and I’m the only lawmaker that matters. You cannot judge a life in progress, well you can, but it will not have any merit. You can only evaluate the totality of something, not a portion. A lot can change in a minute, an hour, a day, a year in one’s life, before the end. A human life is the most complicated thing in the universe because it’s driven by reason and emotion, and is aware of both, hopefully.

  Never let your residual life blind you to this new way life is. Obscurantists hinder progress because they’re enchanted by backwards thinking. Speaking objectively is not brainwashing or proselytizing. If people were trustworthy why create armies and weapons to blow up other countries or detractors? A stern scolding and hope has never been a nation’s strategy against attackers/terrorists, it has always been swift revenge/murder for good reason. The weak have always outnumbered the strong and yet the strong-willed ruled the world. These monsters vastly outnumber us, but are the weakest form of humanity. A human being’s greatest strength is their intellect. To conspire is to conquer; these things merely desire and expire. I’m trapped in the dark with only my will and my wit to escape, I can’t limit either on naive notions.

  There’s no right or wrong, only personal actions and consequences. Each of us live by a truth from within. The truth needs to be said over and over because there’s twice as many lies being told. The most important transformation a person can go through is the one from wishful-thinking to objective truth. An easy concept, though hard to master. Every theory or idea ever had is trying to lead to the truth of identity/self. People explicate and come at it in different ways because they distrust each other because it’s their identity they’re trying to find and define, which is understandable.

  The extreme ends of morality is cruel either to the person or to a society. The middle is vulgar morality, nothing to be proud of either unless you have a strong leader. A man cannot separate himself from religion therefore a leader can have none, only the mission of protecting his people. Nihilism is the fastest way to destruction, believe in yourself, solipsism is the only reality you should be concerned about. Pride in ownership, in ideas or behavior, is not evil it’s necessary, if someone doesn’t take joy in accomplishments, why even try to complete anything in life. Words such as anger, pride, selfishness, that describe the authentic human condition are given a negative connotation thanks to religions and this makes everyone feel guilty, shame, and self-loathing when they have any feeling besides pure joy. An impossible task that leads to self-destruction either through nihilism or fundamentalism.

  Nowhere in the Bible is there a devil that tortures sinners in hell. From the Devil’s appearance to behavior, it has always been an artistic creation, Dante’s fault, that has become truth because it has been told so long. Humans have never needed hell to exist. Religious talk is to convert and shame, I have no interest in either. I have little tolerance for the artifice of social conventions. This time needs to replace hell as the worst place a person can go through, because it’s the truth. And the truth is hard enough to believe in.

  Be your true-self, not an imitation, favorable or not. The day Phillip arrived into my custody. Everyman throughout the day offered their condolences for Jacob’s death and each time I said “Thank You” or “Thanks for your support.” I felt so uneasy and worst each time it occurred. Having to lie all day and days afterward only exacerbated my guilt. I find epistolary therapy helpful, the art of letter writing was dead in my time and now it’s alive again. These men follow an idea of power. I make it a habit not to idolize others, yet some of these men follow an idea of me, a projection of all their hopes and desires, and once their version of me shatters, an anger will arise within themselves because a piece of them is forever gone once their illusion is destroyed. These men would never follow me if they knew the truth. When it comes to practicing what I preach, as it applies to the core of our vision from which our society was built upon. Rome wasn’t built in a day, but it was destroyed in one.

  I do what I do to save the world not because of some perverted fantasy. Groundswell of support is mine to lose. The Breeding Program is a success, but for how long, is it a self-sustaining plan or is it destined to fail. Is the Breeding Program an ominous sign that I have fallen victim to the Bathsheba Syndrome and have I lost my way? Or is my plan for a Master Race, a felix culpa (happy fault), an apparent mistake that actually ends up having surprisingly beneficial consequences. Am I using love to shield my self-hatred?

  I need to be honest; any day can be my last. One day I will tell all the men that Jacob was not my son, he was my lover. But not today. I am more afraid of losing my status/power if I was to do so, more than being kicked out to the monsters? Both will definitely happen eventually. I don’t have the time to hate myself. Be the man you need to be. I have to hide who I am to achieve what I believe in.

  The Boss

  He crumples up the paper at the sound of footsteps.

  Chapter Twelve

  1

  Diana’s driving the Pequod towards downtown through the uneven back roads to pick up her husband.

  The radio yammers on. “The freeway is a graveyard of vehicles in a eternal gridlock. Stay away from the city.”

  David dismisses the spurious babble. Leans over and clicks the center console’s screen to answer the phone call.

  His dad’s speaking through an earpiece, panting. Screams blare through the car speakers, causing Diana to swerve.

  David says. “Dad. Where do we pick you up? The garage,
the alley?”

  Diana says. “Let us know.”

  Dad says. “It’s so good to hear your voices.”

  David says. “Pierce them through the eyes to kill the brain.”

  Dad says. “Son and my love. Don’t come for me.” Diana stops the car on the edge of the town. David beseeches his mother to move. “What are you doing?”

  Both are locked in a battle of wills, leaning closer to each other, looking into identical eyes.

  Diana’s voice quavers as she says to David. “What I have to, to keep you safe…” She points her finger in his head. “Think. Your father wants us safe…He’s being a man, making the hard decision for his family.” She locks all the doors. David reaches for her door panel; she raises her elbow blocking him. She screams. “Stop it. I agree with your father, we won’t get out alive. We’ll all lose.”

  She and David gaze at the city, it looks peaceful and harmless from afar. He gets a feeling she’s withholding something. She doesn’t love me anymore ever since the incident with my Baseball friends.

  David repeatedly elbows his window. “Let me out.” It doesn’t budge and neither does he.

  Diana’s gripping the steering wheel, imprinting grooves into her palms, eyes welling with tears. “Stop it David.”

  She steps on the gas and begins to turn left, but David grabs and yanks the wheel to the right. Diana rocks back and forth in her seat; David grabs a handful of her hair and slams her face into the steering wheel, knocking her unconscious. The horn lets out a whimper and she reclines back. He forgets about her and exits the vehicle.

  David quells a ring-rust face zombie with a felicitous branch to the mouth. It falls to the ground face first and David beats the back of his head for good measure and because it feels right.

  He runs around the front of the car, lifts Diana onto his shoulder, and looks around for an area to leave her. He paces in a circle of contemplation then finally tosses her into the backseat. “You’ll be fine. I have a plan.”

  He calls his father; the phone rings and goes to the answering machine twice. David sits in the car taking in the city, rotating the steering wheel to nowhere. The car phone rings and frightens him. “Dad…meet me at the fire escape.”

  “What? Where’s your mother?”

  “She fainted…I won’t abandon you.”

  “David, leave me…you can’t win this time…goodbye.” His Dad hangs up.

  The implacable David drives on the battle-worn grass, bypassing zombies aimlessly walking for the city as if it’s their destiny. Dead pepper the field, twenty-to-one. People are running with children in their arms away from the slow progression of the brain fog beings. Some humans jump in excitement and wave their hands at the sight of David’s Pequod. He skips over shallow pretenses, steps on the gas and the frighten leap out of his way. Faces as unique as fingerprints are in the hundreds of cars on the bridge, freeway, and roads, heading away from the city, all look on at the fey David in befuddlement. They honk their horns, for their safety and his. He should be on the highway heading away from hell. Tranches of body parts ingrain in David’s tracks. The confluence of the open country and the nascent city is melding into one. A bonhomie sun from postcards shines in his eyes.

  David rides over train tracks, activates the console screen with a button on the steering wheel, “call Dad,” no reaction from the vehicle. He slams on the horn and looks in the rearview mirror at his mom. “Stupid thing. Call Hubby.”

  Dead reckoning helps him navigate the city; restaurants the three of them dined in all the time carry him through the streets, it feels like he’s driving in reverse without the one-way restrictions holding him back.

  David speeds up around the dead like orange cones, alerting him to danger. On the last ring, his father answers. “Are you two safe?”

  The abrasive David says. “I’m a few blocks away, get to a fire escape or wherever you can. Hurry up.” Hangs up.

  Abdominous zombies and grisly fires chase people through doors, there’s scarce vehicles left on the craggy streets. David vacillates at a four way stop and slows down. Don’t muck it up. From the sky, a zombie falls onto the hood of David’s car, he speeds up and the hasty zombie slides backwards slapping on the hood with elastic hands. David’s back tires hop up a bit and the zombie rips apart.

  He turns a corner into a mongrelization of zombies in the hundreds covering all the concrete like black tar at a standstill. David can’t see passed them for blocks. Inside the car, it smells like nectarines until the compost smell seeps into the car vents and makes him gag as he stares at the multitude of faces with the same lost expression. The zombies are quiet and empty like the buildings; the contents of both are mysterious to David. He lets his foot off the brake and the car reverses in a snail’s pace. As he positions the car to drive away, the backwheel squeaks like a black cat in a dark alley. A single zombie opens its black eyes then the rest of his ilk rouse out of their torpor and view up in unison at the benediction. David drives away as fast as physically possible for machine and man; the zombies stave their arms into him, denting the backside of his car like thrashing monkeys in excitement.

  The brutishness of clamping of teeth on glass puts him back in the doctor’s chair when his arm cast was chainsaw off. The intensity of the sound has never left him, but now he can put it to rest.

  He looks in the rearview as he puts distance between him and the reincarnated sinners clamoring for a human tasting.

  David rolls his shoulders to relieve the tension in his mind, the phone rings, he says. “Answer.”

  “I’m on the roof, I see thousands of people surrounding you. Leave.”

  David concocts an idea, honks the horn, and proceeds to reverse and drive away in the opposite direction, heading for the block over. Speed causes him to bump up when he hits the curb; the car runs through a fire hydrant and into a quartet of scraggly zombies in the chest. Zombies stumble towards the tower of gushing water as if it’s the fountain of youth. They have green skin, saggy throats like turtles, and pustules covered their faces.

  David says. “I’m heading back, thirty seconds, be ready.”

  Dad says. “It won’t work. There are too many.”

  David’s near his father’s twenty-two-story workplace.

  His Dad says. “I love you.”

  David turns and is half a block from the alley entrance. Through his windshield, he sees a black blur hit the street. David stops the car, despondently flips over the body, and identifies the person by the necklace. “Dad…why…”

  David feels powerless more so than in creating and forgetting his memories. A scraping noise is coming from deep within the mouth of the alley, the dumpster is moving towards the car like a tongue. Bustling zombies are spilling out in perpetuity from the cul-del-sac and from the confines of the windows on both sides of the buildings. Glass rains down. Boiled infested bodies are leaping down to their second death.

  David’s on his knees, puts his hand over his Dad’s mangled face, closes his eyes, and his heart slows down.

  The Pequod reverses and spins away from the horde of androgynous zombies, Diana has dried blood over her face, she looks back from the driver’s seat and through the back door she exited from. “Get in son.” Dispelling David’s pain for a split second. He pulls the necklace from his father’s neck and dives into the backseat. David looks at the blurry car ceiling and squeezes the necklace, a white gold cross over his chest. “Coward.”

  2

  David ascends the mental stairs to realization and acceptance as he stands and faces against the tree with both hands overlapping each other, elbows slightly bent. He looks at the ground, his breathing is congested. Cluster headache and feels evicted from his self.

  The wind is a whistling noise seeping through the cracks of the trees, getting rowdier with each second. David has the sensation he’s being rushed to talk, but doesn’t care about the captive audience’s feelings, who’re lingering on each of his body movements. The trappings of machina
ting are over for him; his journey has come to an end and time for the truth.

  David has a careworn expression; his voice is low and hoarse. “Coop didn’t make it.”

  The Chief runs up, pushing Ava out of the way. “How…you sure?” Eyes full of unshed tears of love and anger, waiting for David’s reaction.

  David loses all his breath in a second, with his mouth gaping open, scooping up the air. “Coop told me a little about himself. No matter what he did in the past, Coop died a hero.” David resembles a man lost in a dark tunnel, unaware of how deep it truly goes.

  The Chief cries out, “lies,” to David’s scant explanation, takes a step closer and raises his fists, not accepting the words; to him David is as reliable as a victim’s memory who gets mugged at night, worthless. “Did you see a body?”

  The incoming wind gives David the sensation that his face is as dried out like chalk and will crumble at any moment. David has not look anyone in the eyes since he arrived. He mulls over his words before responding, rubbing each arm in a restless nature.

  “Back off.” Ava precedes passed Lou and shoves the Chief into the dirt like someone who’s poorly performing a time sensitive task that can only be done right by her.

  David says to himself. “We’re so close, stay on this leap of faith a little longer…” He then speaks up a bit, sharply enunciating every syllable like a seasoned eulogist. “They don’t make them like they used to.” David is in the habit of collecting father figures with the goal of making his look weak.

  Lou foments the crowd. “Don’t you dare cry one tear for him. You didn’t know him, motherfucker. Ava step aside now.”

  A teary eyed Youngblood fires his rifle over their heads. “Let David talk.” Everyone’s shoulders jump.

  David says. “On our trip to the hospital, Coop asked me to join his group after all of this…” He runs out of air and has to take another breath; it feels like a punch to the gut to do so.